Traditionally, to produce a railway signaling diagram, it is necessary to graphically reproduce the outline of the railway track portion according to the topological information. The outline of the railway track portion is typically referred to as a “diagram” or “track plan.” Then, pieces of track equipment, such as signaling elements, are positioned on the track plan, depending on the type of equipment that will travel there and the standards in force in the country. Exemplary signaling elements include clearance points, signals, indicators, etc. Lastly, control tables and interlocking tables applicable to the signals and the possible itineraries on the railway track portion are generated. These tables are very useful to the station agent in order to manage the railway traffic. For example, an interlocking table for a given itinerary includes all of the actions performed by the different control members of the track equipment or signals with the aim of allowing the passage of a railway vehicle in a direction only when all of the necessary safety conditions for that movement are met.
To meet safety conditions, rules for positioning the different track equipment known by those skilled in the art are used to generate each railway signaling diagram. For example, a train must not embark on a track segment of the network if the following four segments are not free, i.e., if one of them is occupied by another railway vehicle. As a result, it is necessary to position a panel upstream of the track segment signaling whether or not the train can embark there. The position of the panel is determined between, among other things, the speed of the trains traveling on the network so as to provide a stopping distance for the train if the following segments are not free.
A typical railway signaling diagram is generated by several operators as a function of their specialty. Each operator implements the railway signaling diagram with track equipment for which he is responsible and according to positioning rules specific to him. He can modify equipment added by other operators. Furthermore, the rules used for the generation may be different from one operator to the next and are not mentioned in the final version of the railway signaling diagram. Furthermore, the signaling diagram is traditionally implemented successively by the operators on a paper version of the track diagram, causing a long process of generating the complete and definitive version of the signaling diagram.
Thus, a need exists and the present invention aims to provide a method and a device for generating and publishing a railway signaling diagram in a standardized and automatic manner, thereby allowing the diagram to be generated reliably and quickly.